Lightning Watching
by Unhobbity Hobbit
Summary: Your average hobbit-scared-of-lightning fic but with a twist. One-shot.


A/N: Never in my household has anyone been afraid of thunderstorms so here's my take on hobbit-scared-of-lightning fics. To commemorate my last day of compulsory education (yeah baby!)  
  
Lightning Watching  
  
A rumble of thunder from far off and Pippin sat straight up in his bed. Thunder! That meant lightning! He jumped out of his bed and ran to the window. He yanked the curtains aside and looked out, the rain pouring down outside was loud and the sky blacker than black. A flash lit up the cloud and a boom of thunder followed almost immediately, momentarily drowning out the sound of the rain.  
  
Pippin ran for his door and fumbled for the doorknob in the faint glow of the fire. He still had his blanket half wrapped around him and it trailed behind him as he ran lightly into the hallway, down two doors and looked for the doorknob there. His eyes were open as wide as they could get, straining for light in the pitch black of the hole. Another flash allowed his eyes to locate the doorknob before plunging him back into darkness. He opened the door and ran into the room, swishing his blanket in behind him before pushing the door to.  
  
He wrapped the blanket tighter around himself before whispering in to the darkness,  
  
"Frodo? Frodo are you in here?" A grunt affirmed that Frodo was indeed occupying the room and also that he was not particularly thrilled to have his young cousin in there with him. "There's thunder and lightning outside Frodo!" said Pippin, rushing to the window and pulling the curtains open.  
  
"Yes Pippin, I was aware of that." said Frodo from under the covers of his bed. Pippin turned from where he was peering excitedly out of the window, bouncing on the balls of his feet and ran over to where Frodo had his head stuck firmly under the covers.  
  
Pippin lifted the edge of the duvet up and peered into the gloom.  
  
"Come on Frodo! You'll never see any of the lightning from there!" said Pippin, trying to pinpoint exactly where Frodo's head was.  
  
"That, Pippin, is the point." Pippin stopped and stared at the glints of light he supposed to be Frodo's eyes.  
  
"You mean you don't want to watch the lightning?" Another flash lit up the room and caused Frodo to jump, the crash of thunder that followed reduced him to a quivering mass beneath the bedclothes. "Aww, that was a good one! Look what you made me miss Frodo!"  
  
"Feel free to watch the lightning but can't you do it in your own room?" Frodo's head peeped out from under the blankets and glared at Pippin.  
  
"But it's so much more fun watching it with someone else and may I remind you that you are now the only other person in this household, or would you rather I ran to Buckland to watch it with Merry with a mug of milk?" Pippin put his hands on his hips, though the blanket rather spoiled the image, or would have if Frodo had been able to see him. Another flash and rumble sent Frodo's head straight back under the covers.  
  
"You're not like this about Gandalf's fireworks and if anything they're louder!"  
  
"They're different, they're Gandalf's." reasoned Frodo.  
  
"Well, how do you know these aren't caused by Gandalf? He may be really angry."  
  
"I don't think it matters how angry he is, I doubt he'd be able to do anything like that," Frodo stopped and remembered Bilbo's stories, "Or maybe he could but why would he be in the Shire making lightning?" even though his voice was muffled by the material, the panic was evident. Pippin climbed onto the bed.  
  
"Well, can't you just pretend that it's Gandalf?" there was a movement under the covers which could probably be described as a headshake. Pippin sighed and crawled under the covers to find his cousin. "Will you at least come out and watch it for a bit with me? I think it's finishing anyway." Pippin looked out the window, disappointed that he had missed some of the best of the storm and in a second of light when Frodo looked, he saw the expression and immediately felt sorry for Pippin.  
  
It was the first time Pippin was staying in Bag End without his family and one of the most exciting things that was most likely going to happen (though one could never tell with Pippin) was being spoiled by Frodo's own selfishness. Slowly, he sat up in his bed.  
  
"Can we watch it from here?" asked Frodo.  
  
"Of course!" replied Pippin, flinging himself onto Frodo and eventually settling down in his lap.  
  
Together they watched another three forks of lightning strike the ground and while Frodo flinched at each one, he felt calmer when he could see Pippin grinning like a fool because of these very same flashes of light. Eventually the downpour of rain relented and so did the crashes of thunder, dying down to only an occasional faint rumble.  
  
Pippin yawned and stretched.  
  
"I think that's enough lightning watching for one night, don't you?" he said sleepily, barely able to keep his eyes open and he rolled off Frodo's lap to wrap himself in Frodo's covers and make good use of the rest of the night.  
  
"Not going back to your own bed then?" said Frodo conversationally. In answer Frodo received a small shake of the head and a very quietly mumbled 'no'. Frodo smiled fondly down at his youngest cousin and as he settled down next to him, he kissed Pippin on the cheek. "Goodnight Pippin." Pippin remained quiet but snuggled further into Frodo. Frodo smiled, how was it that one little lad could achieve something that no amount of sensible talks from elder relations could? He didn't know. One thing he did know though; he was completely exhausted!  
  
He was asleep before the thought even left his mind. 


End file.
